The old standby: the movie quote quiz. Full points for guessing movie title, actor, and character, so a possible three points per flick, up till question #34, which is a trick question and therefore worth one point. NO FAIR USING GOOGLE. If I find out you cheated and used Google (I am not sure how I would do this, but I have ways and means), Ima cut you.

Of course it’s relatively easy to cheat off other people’s answers as well, but it’s not like there are valuable prizes at stake here.

As a special bonus to make it easier for you: no actor has more than one quote on the list. (One director is represented twice.)1.) “I’ll join this conversation on the proviso that we stop bitching about people talking about wigs, dresses, bust sizes, penises, drugs, night clubs, and bloody Abba.”

2.) “I ran out of gas. I had a flat tire. I didn’t have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn’t come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake! A terrible flood! Locusts! It wasn’t my fault, I swear to God!”

3.) “The last tour I did was ten years ago. It was Aerosmith, but they’ve gone and cleaned up their act. It’s all wheatgrass juice and fuckin’ pumpkin seeds. I hope you guys are still crazy, or I’m outta here.”

4.) “It’s like a plumber. If you do it okay, nobody notices. If you fuck up, it gets full of shit.”

5.) “I just arrived in this stupid suburb. I have no friends, no money, no car, no license. And even if I did have a license all I can do is drive out to some stupid mall. Maybe if I’m lucky play some fucking video games, smoke a joint and get stupid. You see, there’s nothing to do anymore. Everything decent’s been done. All the great themes have been used up. Turned into theme parks. So I don’t really find it exactly cheerful to be living in the middle of a totally, like, exhausted decade where there’s nothing to look forward to and no one to look up to.”

6.) “Don’t look behind Door Number Two, Monty! It’s time to play ‘End of the Line, My Valentine!’ A-joo-ron-ron-ronnie, ron-ron-ronnie-mo!”

7.) “Ah. Well, I attended Juilliard. I’m a graduate of the Harvard Business School. I travel quite extensively. I lived through the Black Plague and had a pretty good time during that… I’ve seen The Exorcist about a hundred and sixty-seven times, and it keeps getting funnier every single time I see it! Not to mention the fact that you’re talking to a dead guy!”

8.) “He’s whittling on a piece of wood. I got a feeling that when he stops whittling, something’s gonna happen.”

9.) “Listen to me, Hercule, and you will learn something. Now then, the facts in this case are: the body of the chauffeur was found in the bedroom of the second maid. Fact! Cause of death: Four bullets in the chest. Fact! The bullets were fired at close range from a .25 caliber Beretta automatic. Fact! Maria Gambrelli was discovered with the murder weapon in her hand. Fact! The murder weapon was registered in the name of the deceased, Miguel Ostos, and was kept, mind you, in the glove compartment of the Ballon Rolls-Royce. Fact! Now then, members of the household staff have testified that Miguel Ostos beat… you fool, Hercule. You have broken my pointing stick. I have nothing to point with now.”

10.) “And suddenly lightning flashed, and a mighty thunder shook the wasted land, and the evil king glared at the good prince and said… something very forgettable.”

11.) “I don’t want no Commies in my car. And no Christians either!”

12.) “Gentlemen, look at it this way. Considering the type of people you are and the environment you’re in, this may be the only chance you ever have, in your entire lives, to have sex.”

13.) “Well, what do you think farmers are? Saints? They are the most cunning, untrustworthy animals on earth. If you ask them for rice, they’ll say they have none. But they have. They have everything. Look in the rafters, dig in the ground. You’ll find it. Rice in jars. Salt. Beans. Sake. Look in the mountains, hidden farms everywhere. And yet they pretend to be oppressed!”

14.) “You are a sad, strange little wagon. You have my pity. Farewell!”

15.) “Years ago my mother used to say to me, “in this world, Elwood, you must be” – she always called me Elwood – “in this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant.” Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me.”

18.) “You know what you are? You’re God’s answer to Job, y’know? You would have ended all argument between them. I mean, He would have pointed to you and said, ‘y’know, I do a lot of terrible things, but I can still make one of these.’ You know? And then Job would have said, ‘Eh. Yeah, well. You win.'”

19.) “I never got to bat in the major leagues. I would have liked to have had that chance. Just once. To stare down a big league pitcher. To stare him down, and just as he goes into his windup, wink. Make him think you know something he doesn’t. That’s what I wish for. Chance to squint at a sky so blue that it hurts your eyes just to look at it. To feel the tingling in your arm as you connect with the ball. To run the bases – stretch a double into a triple, and flop face-first into third, wrap your arms around the bag.”

20.) “Shut up and deal.”

21.) “All right, sweethearts, what are you waiting for? Breakfast in bed? Another glorious day in the Corps! A day in the Corps is like a day on the farm. Every meal’s a banquet! Every paycheck a fortune! Every formation a parade! I love the Corps!”

22.) “I knew a whore once in Wilmington. She had a glass eye. Used to take it out and wink people off for a dollar.”

23.) “The Einstein of enterprise. The Edison of industry. The ‘billion dollar cranium.’ Idea man. And not one of you mugs has given me a story on him! Bunch of lame-brained… Facts, figures, charts! They never sold a newspaper! I read this morning’s edition of the Argus and let me tell you something: I’d wrap a fish in it! I’d use it as kindling! Hell, I’d even train my poodle on it if he wasn’t a French poodle and more partial to the pages of Paris Soir, but I sure wouldn’t shell out a hard-earned nickel to read the dadblamed thing! ”

24.) “Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I’m delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever.”

25.) “Now, a few words on looking for things. When you go looking for something specific, your chances of finding it are very bad. Because of all the things in the world, you’re only looking for one of them. When you go looking for anything at all, your chances of finding it are very good. Because of all the things in the world, you’re sure to find some of them. ”

26.) “My boy, that was a TV show. I used a stunt double. I always use a stunt double. Except in love scenes. I insist on doing those myself.”

27.) “I can get you what you want. You just have to talk to me. I’m your priest, your shrink, your main connection to the switchboard of souls. I’m the magic man, the Santa Claus of the subconscious. You say it, you even think it, you can have it. You want a girl, you want two girls? I don’t know what your thing is or what you’re curious about… you want a guy? Maybe you want to be a girl… see what that feels like? Imagine that. Be a girl.”

28.) “I have just shot someone. I did it on purpose! I said, I have just killed a man, and I wish to confess!”

30.) “Please don’t say we’re not going to take the car home. Please don’t say we’re not going to take the car home. Please don’t say we’re not going to take the car home.”

31.) “You can’t live with ’em, you can’t live without ’em. / There’s something irresistible-ish about ’em. / We grin and bear it ’cause the nights are long. / I hope that something better comes along.”

32.) “You wanna be a Chinese, you gotta eat the nasty stuff.”

33.) “Tomorrow it will be twenty-eight years to the day that I’ve been in the service. Twenty-eight years, in peace and war. I don’t suppose I’ve been at home more than ten months in all that time. Still, it’s been a good life. I loved India. I wouldn’t have had it any other way. But there are times when suddenly you realize you’re nearer the end than the beginning.”

THE TRICK QUESTION: “You don’t understand, I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody. Instead of a bum, which is what I am, let’s face it.”

I only knew four, and three of them have already been answered (although I can add that it was Michael Keaton playing Betelgeuse in Beetlejuice, and that it was Alan Rickman in Last Action Hero even though I can’t remember the character’s name)…but for the fourth, number 27 is ‘Strange Days’, with Ralph Fiennes playing a character whose name I can’t remember.

For the record, BTW, I would have ended ‘Last Action Hero’ with Alan Rickman making his huge, melodramatic speech about, “This isn’t the movies, and here, the bad guys can win!” and then forty cops bursting onto the roof, because he was waving a gun around in the middle of a heavy-security major Hollywood premiere party. Rickman smirks, takes aim at the cops…and gets shot forty-seven times, because unlike the movies, these aren’t disposable extras whose job is to die to show how bad-ass the villain is. They’re real cops, and they shoot him dead.

Danny helps Slater to his feet, and they look down at the bullet-riddled corpse. “Seems kind of…anti-climactic,” Slater says. “What do you expect?” Danny says. “This isn’t a movie, it’s real life. Come on, let’s get you back through that screen.”

I believe Fiennes’s character’s name was Lenny. But it’s been too long since I’ve seen that film. I remember Michael Wincott being in it and Angela Bassett kicking ass and automatically-transcribing answering machines and that’s about it.

I got Beetlejuice, Seven Samurai, Groundhog Day, Field of Dreams, Blazing Saddles, and the Hudsucker Proxy. That one was Jennifer Jason Leigh’s character, name escapes me. Plus:

8) Once Upon a Time in the West – Jason Robards as Cheyenne
22) The Last Detail – Jack Nicholson as Budduskey
27) Strange Days – Ralph Fiennes as Lenny Nero
33) The Bridge on the River Kwai – Alec Guinness as Colonel Nicholson

#10 is killing me. I keep thinking it’s Mask of Zorro, but that line is “Fighting like a lion, fighting like a TIGER, FIGHTING… as safely as possible”. So I’m stumped, but I’m pretty sure it’s a similar situation of a hero telling glory stories to his child before getting cut off by a glare.

The only character I would’ve been able to name from memory was Apone.

I need to watch more movies. 🙁 (I did see Pump Up The Volume–I recommend getting the soundtrack btw–but it was too long ago for me to remember that particular quote. If you’d included the one where he mentioned the cock ring I’d probably have gotten it.)

2.) “I ran out of gas. I had a flat tire. I didn’t have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn’t come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake! A terrible flood! Locusts! It wasn’t my fault, I swear to God!”

John Belushi as Jake Blues in The Blues Brothers.

9.) “Listen to me, Hercule, and you will learn something. Now then, the facts in this case are: the body of the chauffeur was found in the bedroom of the second maid. Fact! Cause of death: Four bullets in the chest. Fact! The bullets were fired at close range from a .25 caliber Beretta automatic. Fact! Maria Gambrelli was discovered with the murder weapon in her hand. Fact! The murder weapon was registered in the name of the deceased, Miguel Ostos, and was kept, mind you, in the glove compartment of the Ballon Rolls-Royce. Fact! Now then, members of the household staff have testified that Miguel Ostos beat… you fool, Hercule. You have broken my pointing stick. I have nothing to point with now.”

Peter Sellers as Inspector Cluseau in A Shot In the Dark.

10.) “And suddenly lightning flashed, and a mighty thunder shook the wasted land, and the evil king glared at the good prince and said… something very forgettable.”

Anthony Hopkins as Don Diego de la Vega in The Mask of Zorro.

13.) “Well, what do you think farmers are? Saints? They are the most cunning, untrustworthy animals on earth. If you ask them for rice, they’ll say they have none. But they have. They have everything. Look in the rafters, dig in the ground. You’ll find it. Rice in jars. Salt. Beans. Sake. Look in the mountains, hidden farms everywhere. And yet they pretend to be oppressed!”

Toshiro Mifune as Kikuchiyo in Shichinin no Samurai.

24.) “Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I’m delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever.”

I believe this is the title character in The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen.

31.) “You can’t live with ‘em, you can’t live without ‘em. / There’s something irresistible-ish about ‘em. / We grin and bear it ’cause the nights are long. / I hope that something better comes along.”

Rolf, playing himself, in The Muppet Movie.

THE TRICK QUESTION: “You don’t understand, I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody. Instead of a bum, which is what I am, let’s face it.”

It’s a slightly misquoted version of Brando’s famous line in On the Waterfront, but I’m not sure where it’s from.